Charming children try to create a miracle in film for all ages

His 1998 gem “After Life,” for example, was a wise film about a strange sort of institution that helps the just-deceased choose one memory to carry with them to the afterlife.

“I Wish,” his latest film, has a similar combination of cleverness, sweetness and, sometimes, heartbreak. And it’s a rare arthouse family film. If you’re looking for something to introduce youngsters to the joys of foreign cinema, “I Wish” is an ideal starting point.

The first scene opens on 12-year-old Koichi (Koki Maeda) carefully cleaning his bedroom. When he finally catches up with his friends on the way to school, they ask what took him so long. He explains he was cleaning the volcanic ash that seeped in from the nearby volcano Sakurajima. “Doesn’t it bug you?” he asks his pals. “Not anymore,” one responds.

But Koichi has anything but a sense of resignation. He lives with his mother and her parents, while his younger brother, Ryunosuke (Ohshiro Maeda), lives with their father nearly 200 miles away. The two boys — marvelously played by a pair of real-life brothers who perform comedy in Japan — are determined to reunite the family, though it seems clear from the musician father’s benign neglect why their parents separated.

When the boys hear a new bullet train will connect their towns, they see their chance: Legend has it that when a new train route starts service, you can be granted a wish if you witness the moment the opposite trains pass each other the first time.

It’s difficult to make a successful film — or any piece of art, really — from a child’s point of view. Koreeda succeeds. It helps that his young stars are experienced actors for boys their age. But he also understands how those children who act the most worldly are often the most naive and innocent. It’s that innocence, which sooner or later must meet its match, that makes “I Wish” such a delightfully entertaining film.